Worlds Away
by DudeforChrist
Summary: Set right after the Reaper invasion of Earth in Mass Effect 3, and during the events of The Two Towers in Lord of the Rings.
1. Prologue

Worlds Away

Prologue

_Voices._

_Children's voices._

_Before he had even opened his eyes, he heard them – laughing, shouting, screaming, not in horror, but with joy. He was not a father. He was a man of war. It felt like years since he had even seen a child, and yet as heard the echoes of their teasing and playing, he felt himself, for the first time in what seemed ages, to be at peace – assured that this was what he'd been fighting for all along. This was why he had spilled so much guilty blood – so the blood of the innocent could be free, far from war and death. This was what he'd given his life for; what he knew he'd give his life for again._

_His eyes opened. The voices continued to echo through his mind, but he saw no one. Instead, barren trees stood before him and around him, their leafless branches stretching out as if reaching for the last remnants of life. The grass beneath his feet, too, was dying, tainted an empty brown that did not promise a future._

_"Mama!"_

_He looked up, searching for the voice, and out of the corner of his eye a white light passed behind a tree. He felt himself being pulled from within, and suddenly he realized he was running with all of his might in the direction that the light had gone, feet pounding on the dying grass, eyes seeking frantically to find the one who had called out._

_"Mama!"_

_The second voice altered his course. Still, he saw nothing but the trees as he rushed past them and the gray skies heavy above him._

_"Go, child."_

_He paid no heed to the branches that clawed him as he tore through the forest. Something inside him urged him on and refused to let him stop. He had to reach them. He had to save them._

_The trees ended, and he found himself standing on an open hill, looking down towards what seemed to be a village, though not like any village he'd ever seen. The homes, so few and all so very small, were scattered here and there, not in any particular order or fashion. The people, clad in brown and gray robes of the most basic cloth, stood outside, looking onwards towards a darkened horde, descending from the opposite side of the village. And instead of children's laughter, shouts of terror filled his ears._

_As the thatched roofs began to burn below, he realized that two children, a girl and boy, were next to him, both sitting on a horse far too large for either of them to ride. Together, they stared, not at the village, but at him. And not just at him, but through him. They needed no words to make him see that he could have stopped this. None of this needed to happen. As the fire began to consume them, he knew that he had failed._

He woke, and found the world familiar.

Shepherd had known dreams like this ever since his experience with the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime over three years ago. But they'd never before been so vivid, so clear. Before, his dreams could have been described as ambiguous visions. Now, he could smell the very air within the dream.

Perhaps that was what happened when you've just watched your world burn from the viewport of a ship with a destination thousands of light-years in the opposite direction. Maybe that was just a little too much for the mind to handle.

He pulled himself up and sat against the back of the bed, running his hands over his head. Even though the fight on Earth had been brief, he felt like he'd been run over by a Mako. No doubt the crew felt the same way. Shepherd knew that half the battle right now was keeping their spirits up. They had families, loved ones back on Earth – loved ones that simply were not going to make it. And deep down, he knew that they weren't going back to Earth right away with the full strength of the Citadel fleets. It wasn't just Earth that the Reapers were after. It was the galaxy. And people don't tend to sacrifice their own homes for the safety of another's. Nothing personal. It was just human nature.

Or…alien nature.

However you wanted to put it.

He looked over at the display on his desk, the faded numbers pushing blue light into the darkness of his cabin. Twenty minutes until they reached the Citadel. Five minutes until Joker notified him that they were making their approach. Ten minutes until he walked the deck with a crew that wanted to be in an entirely different solar system, but couldn't.

As he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and forced himself to his feet, he hoped to God someone on the Council would listen.


	2. Chapter 1 Part 1

Chapter 1.1

The walls of Fangorn Forest closed around them like claws closing around prey. They all knew the stories. Even Gimli, a dwarf who had spent nearly all of his years beneath the surface locked behind walls and doors of stone, seemed to know enough of the mythology of Fangorn to tremble so violently that Aragorn could hear the buckles on his boots shaking. They were all of them unnerved; they were all of them uneasy. But this was where their friends had fled, so this was where they followed.

Yet even as the air he breathed seemed to suffocate his courage and tempt his heart with the thought of fleeing back into the day, what truly haunted Aragorn was that no sign of Merry, or Pippin, or even the creature that had followed them into the darkness of the forest, had yet been found. No blood. No tracks. No signs of struggle or battle. The tracks he'd followed had disappeared long ago in their journey through the trees, and the further they drove into the forest, the less he understood. He was no perfect tracker, to be sure, but a Ranger should need no aid in pursuing the path of two young hobbits and a wounded orc of Saruman's. It was as if they had simply vanished.

Then he felt it – a tremor beneath his feet. At first Aragorn thought it was the trees, their roots shifting and twisting underneath the surface of the earth. But the tremor was beyond mere physical movement. There was something else at work here. A look at his companion's faces confirmed that it had shaken them as well.

"Oh, there's something foul here, lads," Gimli said, his voice barely more than a breath as he raised his axe and glanced wildly about him. Legolas, too, raised his bow slightly, his piercing gaze searching the shadows of the forest. Their ears listened and heard nothing but the groaning of bark and root.

"They are afraid," said Legolas.

"Of us?" Gimli whispered, still looking about frantically.

"_Aragorn." _Legolas's elven tongue pierced the silence, and for a moment, the darkness around them seemed to lessen. _"Something's out there."_

He strode forward, leaping over a fallen log and rushing a few silent steps ahead. Aragorn followed close at his heels until the elf came to a sudden stop. He looked out over Legolas's shoulder, but even the eyes of his bloodline could not match the sight of the elves.

"_What do you see?"_ he asked.

He waited, but no answer came from the mouth of the elf. A second tremor shook them, this one more violent than the last, and Aragorn reached out towards the trunk of the tree nearest him to keep from falling.

"I see…"

A piercing blue flash of light erupted in Aragorn's eyes, and then he felt himself being thrown through the air like a wooden sword being thrown from the hand of a child. He landed shoulder first against a tree and sank to the ground, his head dazed, the close air of the forest coming slowly and painfully to his lungs. As his vision cleared, he saw Legolas a few yards across from him, pummeled by the same blast that had hit him.

The White Wizard…he is here.

A sudden growling rushed through Aragorn's ears. His mind filled with the possibilities of what monstrous creature Saruman could have brought with him into the depths of the forest – orcs, urak hai, wargs. The thought drove him shakily to his feet. But as he stood and tried to establish his balance in spite of the pain in his head and shoulder, he realized that growling came from none of the creatures he'd fathomed in his mind.

Gimli, having just finished his awkward ascent over the fallen log that Legolas and Aragorn had so easily stepped over, leaped furiously to the ground, his eyes filled with a dwarven rage that was fueled by his fear of his opponent. A throwing axe cut through the air towards the growing blue light, which had now reached an intensity that was near blinding. There was a cracking sound, and shards of the throwing axe flew in a hundred different directions.

"Gimli! No!" Aragorn shouted, but the dwarf charged on. There was a second brilliant flash, and Gimli landed, groaning, beside the Ranger. Out of the corner of his eye, Aragorn could see Legolas standing before the blue-white light, his bow lowered, accepting of the fact that this was a battle they simply could not win. Aragorn knew it as well.

Still the light shone on, but now a figure could be seen somewhere within its rays. As Aragorn raised his hands to defend his eyes, a weathered, dark voice spoke.

"It is a pity that we must meet under such circumstances. In spite of what you may think, I find your actions under the trials you have faced to be quite admirable. It is an unfortunate twist of fate that such measures had to be taken to ensure our plans."

As the light shone on and his breath remained, Aragorn wondered why Saruman would taunt them with fair words before their execution. He knew such an end could come. Aside from Sauron himself, Saruman was their greatest foe. But this was so unlike the Saruman that Gandalf had warned him of during their travels with the fellowship. The words from his mouth sounded almost as though they could be sincere. This was no servant of the enemy; or at least not the enemy he knew.

"Who are you?" Aragorn asked, taking a step into the blazing white-blue light. "Show yourself!"

"I am afraid I can't do that," the figure answered calmly. "I hope the next time we meet it will be under more peaceful conditions. Goodbye."

The light collapsed, shrinking back into nothingness. Then Aragorn's body was pulled viciously from the ground, the world around him spinning and twisting into a thousand different shapes and shadows until he did not know which end of him was up and which was down. The spinning slowed to a halt, and instead of the forest's oppressive air, he felt the thickness of water all around him.

Kicking his way up, Aragorn burst through the surface and breathed in the atmosphere of a very different world.


End file.
